(There’s been a lot of debate in the HIV community about whether these tests are a good or bad thing overall. Providing a way for people to test at home could encourage more people to get tested, since there’s still a depressing amount of stigma that keeps people from asking their docs for the test, and also a lot of stigma and assumptions that keep doctors from offering tests to people when they should. So more people being potentially willing to get tested = very good! But the thing is, getting a *positive* HIV test is an actually traumatic event, in that literally, it has been known to give people PTSD, and even without that, it’s an enormous, life changing event, and HIV education in this country is pretty terrible, so most people have a lot of mistaken, and generally terrible, assumptions about what living with HIV means. So while a phone line for counseling is great, there’s nothing that actually ensures people who test positive will call it, especially not if they’re — understandably — freaking out. If you use the *old* version of the home test kit, where you have to mail in the sample and call a lab to get your results, you’re already on the line with someone for counseling; if you test with your doctor, you’re already talking to a health care provider, who can hopefully point you towards the best resources for you. If you’re testing alone, at home, for a disease that is incredibly complicated and often very isolating, well… There are are a huge amount of potential problems there.

Anyway, I shall tiptoe out now, because that really wasn’t the point of the article, sorry, bye.)

Sooo…pretty much everyone?